Timeline of His Holiness Jayapataka Swami's Life - 1991-2000

My dear ones, Please accept my blessings. All glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda!

Syedpur

Before arriving in Syedpur village yesterday evening, I had been assured and reassured that the initiation ceremony there would be very well organized and everyone would be tested prior to my getting there, and only qualified people would be brought before me.

It was not so well organized. A list had been sent to Māyāpur, but they didn’t thoroughly test them according to my system. Some people had been waiting for initiation for years together. So they were anxious to get this chance. Some wanted their wives to get initiated, even though they weren’t yet qualified. All kinds of things. So we set up an emergency testing system and worked through the night. Hundreds of candidates came forward with recommendations. It was a very stressful situation. The devotees who came with me worked so hard. New people kept coming with recommendations.

The program of interviewing and testing began. I had given a check list system so that from the time of people taking guru-āśraya (shelter of the guru), they could already get prepared and ap proved. But somehow this area hasn’t started the new system. The same old begging for mercy. I had to get heavy with the local leaders and inform them what mercy really meant. Giving unqualified people initiation isn’t mercy. Neither for them nor for me. Initiation means I am taking the commitment to get them back to Lord Kṛṣṇa. If they aren’t qualified for initiation, then how will I be able to get them back? I won’t be able to fulfill my side of the contract, and neither will they. So giving cheap initiations is no solution. Apart from that, it isn’t allowed in ISKCON.

They give me the stories on how different gurus from Gauḍīya Maṭha come and give shelter, harināma (first) initiation and gāyatrī (2nd) initiation, all at the same time, for anyone who agrees to accept them and they don’t ask for strictly chanting 16 rounds and following all the principles. My reply is, so what? That requires they be trained not to go for some cheap things. Even now in the west, people go for the cheap initiations and high-profile Gauḍīya Maṭha preachers, only to find that they have left the transcendental shelter of Śrīla Prabhupāda. People need to be trained in the glories of Śrīla Prabhupāda and His Divine Grace’s mission. If they understand that by following Śrīla Prabhupāda’s system they will be guaranteed success, then they will wait and accept the ISKCON spiritual master’s initiation. So these are basic things, but again I have to explain all this since it seems the local pressures make people lose their wider vision.

Okay, everyone is in tune and working now in harmony. The program however goes the whole night. The interviewers work in shifts while I had no time to sleep. After maṅgala-ārati, everyone took their seats around the fire sacrifice and began the ceremony.

I was on a marathon to pick out all the names and it went on for hours. Aja-Lakṣmī devī dāsī had picked out some sample names in Māyāpur but somehow the list wasn’t in alphabetical order. It was ordered like the original list they sent to Māyāpur. Now the local leaders had changed the order of the names and that made the earlier lists irrelevant. Jagannivāsa dāsa was searching the list of 150 names to find which name corresponded, but the Bengali spelling and English rendering also didn’t always match. In the end, we got one-third of the names from the Māyāpur list and the rest I had to pick out again.

The ceremony was finally completed before 9am. I had actually wanted to leave by 2am so that I could reach Dhaka for important meetings about land and legal matters. I hadn’t slept the whole night. So we raced off to go the 480km to Dhaka and cross the river ferry, hoping we could reach by 7pm in time for the meetings.

As we were leaving, it turned out one lady had been cooking and hadn’t gotten initiation. An oversight. When she saw me driving off, she rolled on the ground in anxiety, crying. We have to make some arrangement for her.

We only get 15 kilometers and the van’s tire is punctured. We have to stop. It takes almost an hour to get the tire fixed. No sooner do we stop and about 30 people gather around the windows looking in. I’ve lived in this part of the world for 27 years, but it is still unnerving to have 30 people sur round you and stare at you like you were in the zoo. I went in the Rūpa Sanatana Mandir van that happened to be there and drove off to a quieter place to take some breakfast. Daśāvatara dāsa from Australia drove me and we chat ted. He seems happy to preach in Bangladesh. His family is in Māyāpur.

All the prasāda was fried again. What to say? Why can’t the disciples understand that I can’t eat fried food and need a simple diet? One vegetable, dal and rice and some lychees and a mango was breakfast. Even though we were in an open place with no people, by the time I finish, 10 people had gathered. One couple wearing tilaka stopped. They had wanted to come for initiation but didn’t make it. I preached to them. The wife agreed to come up to 16 rounds a day. The husband was chanting and following for 2 years. My bus drove up and we got into it and headed off to Dhaka.

Rangapur

Along the way the fan belt broke. 300km from Dhaka, we stopped in Rangapur to fix the fan belt. There was a place with a phone that I could call internet. A small photostat and computer training unit in a 3m by 5m room. They didn’t mind that I used the computer. I sent off the urgent messages and received what seemed most urgent. The line was bad and it took a long time.

We headed off southward again. Halfway to the ferry ghat, we got stopped by the police. The officer wanted to make some extra money so he found something wrong with our driver’s insurance and started to threaten him. The driver took a few hundred takas (local currency) and paid off the policeman. Then we went on.

It didn’t look good. 3pm and still a long way to go. I had taken some rest in the moving car since I hadn’t slept last night. When I woke up, boxes filled with clay pots of yogurt were by my feet. The most famous place in Bangladesh for sweet yogurt had been passed and the devotees purchased some. While moving in the car we washed flat rice (chīḍa) and mixed some yogurt with it. So we had a little chīḍa-dadhi snack on the way. I was remembering how Lord Nityānanda Prabhu took chiḍa-dadhi feast at Pānihāṭi provided for by Raghunātha dāsa Gosvāmī. This was traditional Bengali summer snack. It is very simple, pure and sāttvika. The yogurt (miṣṭi-dadhi) was really sweet and rich. Not what I should eat. I was thinking how the bhaktins on the preaching tour would have really liked this. It was thick and brown in color with a very fresh and smooth flavor. Seems this sweet yogurt is even better than Navadvīpa dhāma’s.

I finished my rounds and chanted some extra. Slept a bit more in the moving van. The middle seat was given to me so I could lay down. We reached the ferry ghat at 5pm. Now only 100km from Dhaka. Maybe we can reach by 7 or 8pm. Unfortunately, we had got there just as the last car got on the ferry and they closed the door. No room. Wait for the next one. It was frustrating.

Padmā river

Since my rounds were done, I thought I should start answering the urgent letters. I kept writing until all my batteries went dead. The ferry ride was 2 hours long, but we couldn’t see anything because nightfall had set in. I just kept writing. People would look at me and couldn’t figure out what I was doing sitting with my laptop. I didn’t notice anything and was absorbed in my meditation writing to dear ones in distant places. During that moment they were with me, and I was with them communicating through written words and the heart. Bugs got in the van and flew up on the computer screen, attracted by its glowing green light.

My batteries go dead. I begin praying to Śrīla Prabhupāda and the Pañca-tattva for different devotees around the world who I feel need my help. I make some general prayers for all disciples. It seems a long way to get the revolution of Kṛṣṇa consciousness spread to every town and village. Our devotees need to be more systematic and work as a skilled team. I doze off and dream of Śrīla Prabhupāda...

Dhaka

We only reached the other side by 8:30pm. 86km to Dhaka left. We finally reached at 10:30pm. Devotees, chanting, were waiting to receive us. No prasāda. They thought that we wouldn’t do anything but snack along the way. No problem. Prasannātmā dāsa said in 10-15 minutes he would have two vegetables and hot capatis ready! That is quite fired up.

I logged onto email and found 48 letters waiting for me on Compu serve and 64 on COM with hundreds on conferences. I am back in the internet loop for a night. I take rest after sending off my messages.

I hope that this finds you in good health and blissful in Kṛṣṇa Consciousness.

Your ever well-wisher,

Jayapatākā Swami